"It is the most important victory of my career." -- Head Coach Dick Voris, after the Hoos’ 15-12 victory over Duke on September 27, 1958. Voris finished his UVA career with a record of 1-29.

"We've stopped recruiting young men who want to come here to be students first and athletes second." -- Former Virginia head coach Sonny Randle, describing his strategy for turning around UVA's football program

"As the score mounted, to 20-0 and finally 26-0, his movements slowed. With two minutes to go and South Carolina threatening once more, Voris stood behind several rows of substitutes, staring at his shoes." -- Sports Illustrated, describing Coach Voris’ stellar coaching performance during the Hoos’ 26-0 loss to South Carolina in 1960

"Really, Texas wasn't as good as I thought they'd be." -- Ted Manly, Virginia's freshman quarterback, after Texas had spanked the Hoos 68-0

UVA Football’s Top 20 Stomach Punch Games (1989-2008)

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But I've seen lots of people get shot, you know, in movies. Of all the various ways I've seen a guy getting peppered with bullet holes on film, I think the freakiest gunplay scenes are those where the guy doesn't immediately know he's been hit. It's like it happens so quick that his nerves don't even realize he should be in a horrific amount of pain and screaming like Ray Lewis during his Super Bowl seizure dance. After a few moments however, there's a growing sense of dread as the guy sees a trickle of blood oozing from someplace that should't be oozing blood, and he realizes, "holy crap, I've been shot."

This is what it was like when the ninth-ranked Virginia Cavaliers lost to North Carolina on October 7, 1995. It was a close loss to a traditional rival, one that featured many blown scoring opportunities and mental errors and dropped the Hoos to 5-2, 4-1 in ACC play. But at the time, few people realized that this game was a full-on shotgun blast to the yambag, because the real pain wouldn't fully kick in for another two months. It wasn't until then that UVA fans realized this loss essentially cost Virginia a date in the Orange Bowl against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

[Pausing to let that thought sink in.]

With UVA finishing tied for first (7-1) in the conference but losing the tiebreaker due to a lower national ranking, it was Florida State that represented the ACC in the Orange Bowl that year -- the same Florida State team that the Hoos defeated in early November of 1995. So on New Year's Day the Noles, not the Hoos, staged a 17-point fourth quarter rally against the Irish and won 31-26 in one of the more memorable games in that bowl's history.

[Sigh.]

The Peach Bowl win against Georgia was a decent, but altogether unfulfilling consolation prize. Ultimately, what would have been one of the biggest opportunities in the program's history was essentially lost on October 7, 1995 under the pines at Keenan Stadium.

Background

Virginia Cavalier football in 1995 bore very little resemblance to the Hoos of today. It's almost difficult to describe to any fan of the team under the age of 25. That team was a powerhouse with talent at every position, yet was able to maintain a reputation as a strong program academically. The coaching staff was universally respected on a national level. They showed no intimidation on the road in places like Ann Arbor and Austin. They were the clear #2 in the ACC pecking order at a time when Florida State was the dominant force and a national power of historic proportions. Seven win seasons were a disappointment, rather than the number of wins needed to save a coach's job. And perhaps most remarkably to the fans of today, UVA was the dominant recruiting force in Virginia and perhaps even in the entire mid-Atlantic region.

Coming into the game against the Heels, the Cavaliers were ranked in the Top 10 with a 5-1 record, having won five straight after a season-opening stomach punch loss to Michigan. (No sense in keeping that one a secret.) The team was led by the obvious talents of junior RB Tiki Barber, who was averaging nearly 110 ypg and was quickly becoming a name known throughout all of college football. The defense was stout, with seven future NFLers in the rotation, including James Farrior, Jamie Sharper, Ronde Barber, and freshman sensation Anthony Poindexter.

Despite a difficult schedule, the Hoos were thought to have a legitimate chance to be the first ACC team to defeat the powerful Seminoles and win the conference outright. No other team in the ACC was considered a legitimate threat, with the possible exceptions of Clemson and a young Carolina team that had, despite much-improved play, lost seven of their last eight to UVA coming into the season.

Opponent

After a tenure that began with back-to-back 1-10 seasons, Mack Brown and the North Carolina Tar Heels had begun to make some noise in the ACC in the early 1990s. They finished in the Top 25 in the coaches poll every year from 1992 to 1994 and had built on that success with some strong recruiting classes. Despite their recent fortunes, however, Virginia had defeated UNC the previous two seasons, including 34-10 in 1994.

The Heels came into the UVA game with a somewhat disappointing 2-2 record after losing to a good Syracuse team in the opening week and then being upset by Maryland. Despite the two losses, UNC was ranked #1 nationally in total defense, giving up an average of only 191 total yards per game.

Led by talented, do-it-all RB Leon Johnson and flashy WR Octavus Barnes, the Heels had not defeated a team in the Top 10 since 1982. They would go on to finish a somewhat disappointing 7-5, including a win over Arkansas in the CarQuest Bowl. But they came to play at home against Virginia.

Size of Lead Lost – 1 out of 10 Points

The Heels would lead for most of the game, as the Hoos got off to a very sluggish start. UNC took the opening kickoff and marched into the endzone on their first drive, scoring on a Leon Johnson 2-yard run. The Heels would lead 16-7 at the half, as Johnson also threw for a score. The Hoos fought back, however, and took a 17-16 lead early in the fourth quarter on a Rafael Garcia field goal with 12 minutes left. Six minutes later, the Heels took the lead back on another Johnson TD run after a drive in which UNC converted a fourth and one. They missed the two-point conversion, leaving the margin at five where a TD or even two field goals could win it for Virginia.

Level of Choke – 4 out of 10 Points

Penalties and blown opportunities absolutely killed the Hoos on this day. On a drive deep into UNC territory late in the third quarter, two first downs were nullified by penalty. Germane Crowell was flagged for holding on a 15-yard run by Barber to the UNC 24, and an illegal-formation for not enough players on the line of scrimmage (seriously, does anyone besides UVA get called for that penalty?) eliminated a 7-yard pass to the UNC 27. Groh was then sacked and the Hoos had to punt. They also had a 1st and 10 inside the UNC 40 with 1:51 left and couldn't convert, thanks to a Groh fumble that lost 9 yards on second down. A fourth down pass to Crowell was knocked away and the game was over.

The worst infraction, however, was a mental error that everyone talked about after the game.

Singular Moment – 5 out of 10 Points

Chris Harrison was a solid offensive lineman for Virginia and was playing in his sixth year of eligibility thanks to a medical redshirt. He was working toward his Masters, having already graduated from the McIntire School of Commerce, and was considered a team leader. But it's usually not a good thing when an OL makes perhaps the most memorable play of the game. With five minutes left in the game, the Hoos had marched 40 yards downfield and had a first down at the UNC 33. Having struggled most of the day, the offense was putting together a cohesive drive and seemed to be wresting the momentum away late in the game. On the next play, after a minimal gain by Barber, someone shoved Harrison in the back. Harrison retaliated with a forearm to the UNC defender's facemask and was promptly flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty.

Now, instead of second and 10 from the 33, it was second and 25 from the 48. The Hoos got just inside the 40 on the next two plays, but ultimately had to punt. The penalty didn't directly cost Virginia a touchdown, but that was likely their best scoring opportunity late in the game.

Harrison, to his credit, was a stand-up guy afterward. "It was probably one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made in my life. The dude came up and hit me in the back, and I lost it. It was my fault. I've been playing here long enough to know you've got to keep your poise in times like that."

Painful Finish – 6 out of 10 Points

Despite numerous trips inside UNC territory late in the second half, the Hoos couldn't push enough points across, even with one of their best field goal kickers of the last 20 years in Rafael Garcia. The agonizing fashion in which Virginia would continually get to the edge of his range would ultimately lead to a frustrating finish, as three drives that got inside the UNC 37 produced zero points.

As Coach Welsh would state so eloquently after the game, "they made some key plays, and we didn't."

Season Killer – 8 out of 10 Points

The Hoos wouldn't lose another conference game in 1995, so in that sense, this game had no lingering effect on the team's performance. However, it's impossible to ignore the fact that, with a couple of different bounces and some better mental decisions in this game, the Hoos could have gone 8-0 in ACC play in 1995 and earned a trip to the Orange Bowl. This would not have been like 1990, when UVA backed into the Sugar Bowl. An Orange Bowl appearance in 1995 against Notre Dame would have been, far and away, the biggest game in UVA football history.

Long-Term Implications – 7 out of 10 Points

Up until and including 1995, there was little doubt as to who was the top football program in the state of Virginia. UVA had enjoyed the advantages of a stable conference and recruiting connections in the most talent-rich areas of the state, and they had won six of eight against their rivals in Blacksburg. So it seems like more than a coincidence that, in the same year the Hoos fell just short of an Orange Bowl appearance, the Virginia Tech Hokies won the Big East and trounced Texas in the Sugar Bowl. Each program's trajectory has gone in different directions since this memorable season for both schools.

While the 1995 season alone didn't cause the balance of power in the state to shift, it's not a stretch to conclude that an Orange Bowl appearance could have helped to stem the tide of a quickly improving Hokie program. The Hoos would remain on relatively equal footing with Virginia Tech for the next few years, but it was obvious that after 1995 there was no longer a UVA advantage of any significance.

Conclusion

Even setting aside the Tech factor, the 1995 season was a golden opportunity missed for the Virginia Cavaliers, in many respects. While they finished the season ranked 13th in the AP Poll, they had the talent and ability to finish much higher and set the stage for other great seasons in the future. There would be more painful finishes in the 1995 season, brutal finishes really, but this loss was arguably the most impactful.